Do we hold a wigwam more sacred than a beast's lair and less sacred than a modern home? If so, why? Do we hold an intelligent, capable mother more sacred than an ignorant, feeble one? Where are the limits and tendencies of these emotions? The main basis of this home-sanctity idea is simply the historic record of our ancient religion of ancestor-worship. The home was once used as a church, as it yet is in China; and the odour of sanctity hangs round it still. The other basis is the equally old custom of sex-seclusion--the harem idea. This gives the feeling of mystery and "tabu," of "the forbidden"--a place shut and darkened--wholly private. A good, clean, healthy, modern home, with free people living and loving in it, is no more sacred than a schoolhouse. The schoolhouse represents a larger love, a higher function, a farther development for humanity. Let us revere, let us worship, but erect and open-eyed, the highest, not the lowest; the future, not the past! Closely allied to our sense of home-sanctity and sprung from the same root, is our veneration for the old; either people or things; the "home of our ancestors" being if anything more sacred than our own, and the pot or plate or fiddle-back chair acquiring imputed sanctity by the simple flux of time. What time has to do with sanctity is not at first clear. Perhaps it is our natural respect for endurance. This thing has _lasted_, therefore it must be good; the longer it lasts the better it must be, let us revere it! If this is a legitimate principle, let us hold pilgrimages to the primordial rocks, they have lasted longer than anything else, except sea water. Let us frankly worship the sun--or the still remoter dog-star. Let us revere the gar-fish above the shad--the hedgehog more than the cow--the tapir beyond the horse--they are all earlier types and yet endure! Still more practically let us turn our veneration to the tools, vehicles, and implements which preceded ours--the arrow-head above the bullet, the bone-needle above the sewing machine, the hour-glass above the clock! There is no genuine reason for this attitude. It is merely a race habit, handed down to us from very remote times and founded on the misconceptions of the ignorant early mind. The scientific attitude of mind is veneration of all the laws of nature, or works of God, as you choose to call them. If we must choose and distinguish, respecting this more than that, let us at least distinguish on right lines. The claim of any material object upon our respect is the degree of its use and beauty. A weak, clumsy, crooked tool acquires no sanctity from the handling of a dozen grandfathers; a good, strong, accurate one is as worthy of respect if made to-day. It is quite possible to the mind of man to worship idols, but it is not good for him.